Carol Bell looked healthy, vigorous, strong. She was pleasant-looking, although Nat certainly wouldn’t describe her as pretty. Still, it did flash through her mind that Carrie Li might describe her that way. Was it possible she was on the wrong track believing the woman in the hospital cafeteria was Bethany? Could it have been Carol Bell?
In the photo, Harrison’s wife was wearing black spandex biker shorts and a T-shirt, and Nat imagined she was either a biking enthusiast or a runner. While she looked to be trying to smile in the photo, she didn’t quite manage it. Her eyes were narrowed to a squint. Maybe it was the sun. Although no one else was squinting. Whatever the reason, her expression made her look considerably older than her late twenties. But how old did she. look when she wasn’t squinting?
“Billy’s eleven,” Bell was saying. “Wants to be a pitcher for the Red Sox when he grows up. I always kid him and say he’d better hurry and get there so we can finally win a World Series.” He chuckled but it sounded forced.
“Does your wife work?” Leo asked.
Bell looked surprised by the question. “Carol? God, no. She’s a diehard stay-at-home mom. Her children are
not
going to be latchkey kids. She’s there to watch over them every minute.”
Nat picked up a slight edge in his voice.
“You think she’s an overprotective mother?” she asked.
Bell appeared insulted. “Absolutely not. Carol’s a wonderful mother. I think it’s great that she’s home with the children. Of course, the boys are old enough to manage a bit more on their own. But Daphne’s another matter. She’s still a baby.” The smile returned. “She hates when I call her ‘my baby,’ but I guess she always will be my baby.”
“I understand you went over to the hospital to see Lynn this morning,” Leo said.
Bell looked a bit jarred by the sudden shift of topic. “And was turned away. Can I ask why?”
“Someone tried to kill Lynn Ingram yesterday,” Leo said dryly. As if Bell needed reminding. “He or she didn’t succeed. We don’t want to give her assailant a second chance.”
The doctor’s mouth opened but he seemed at a loss for a response. “You can’t think that I. . . You suspect me?” he finally muttered, his tone etched with disbelief. “You do realize that Lynn wouldn’t be alive right now if I hadn’t found her and had her rushed to the hospital.”
Of course, they did realize that, if he had assaulted Lynn, why didn’t he just leave her to die? Did he get cold feet? Have a change of heart?
“Were you alone when you found Lynn?” Leo asked benignly. “Yes,” he said without hesitation. But then he paused. “Well, one of the clerks at the clinic was coming back from lunch, and I did call out to her as she came into the alleyway from the other end. I shouted for her to call nine-one-one.”
Nat glanced over at Leo a bit put-out that he hadn’t told her about the clerk. It went a long way toward explaining Bell’s rescue actions.
“How close are you and Lynn?” Leo asked.
Bell frowned. “We’re colleagues. We admire each other’s skills and abilities.”
Nat sighed, intentionally loudly.
“And we’re friends. But if you’re suggesting—”
“You wrote to Lynn while she was in prison. And you visited quite often.”
“Like I said. We’re friends.” His tone left no question as to his annoyance with her comment.
Ignoring the doctor’s mounting irritation, she asked, “How did your wife feel about your friendship with Lynn?”
That question really put her on Bell’s shit list. “Carol didn’t
think anything of it,” he said tightly. But he was clearly rattled. “She knew you were writing Lynn? Visiting her in prison?” “My wife has nothing to do with any of this. And I don’t see any purpose to these questions, Ms. Price.”
“Does that mean she didn’t know?” Leo asked. Nat was glad to see Leo picking up the ball. She was pretty sure that he, too, was thinking the mystery woman at the hospital could have been Bell’s wife.
Bell relented, realizing it was two against one. “I didn’t make a point of telling her each time I visited, if that’s what you mean. ” “Did your wife ever meet Lynn before she went to prison?” Bell was working hard to appear nonchalant as Leo continued firing questions. He wasn’t succeeding. “Yes. A couple of times. When Carol dropped by the office.”
“Did she know Lynn was a transsexual?”
“What difference would it make to Carol?”
“If a beautiful young woman worked with my husband, I might feel a flurry of jealousy*” Nat commented. “If I knew she was a transsexual, it might remove that flurry.”
“Carol wasn’t jealous. She had no reason to be jealous. But . . . she did know about Lynn. I mentioned it to her shortly after Lynn started working here.” He cleared his throat. “Is there anything else? I have a very busy schedule.”
“Did you know that Lynn was personally involved with Matthew Slater at the time she was treating him?” Leo asked.
Bell pulled out a pack of breath mints from the breast pocket of his pale gray shirt, peeled one off the roll, and popped it into his mouth. As an afterthought he held out the pack to them. Neither Leo or Nat responded. He tucked the roll back in his pocket.
“Yes. I knew. Lynn told me.”
“What was your reaction?” Nat asked.
“I. . . wasn’t happy about it. It’s never a good idea for a physician to get romantically involved with a patient. ”
“Is that what you told her?”
“She already knew that. But she believed she was in love with him. And,” Bell quickly added, “that Slater was in love with her.”
“But you didn’t believe either was true,” Nat said.
Bell folded his hands one over the other on his desk. “Lynn was rather innocent when it came to men.” After a brief pause he tacked on, “I imagine she still is.”
“Did she tell you what happened that night?” Leo asked.
“No.”
“When you heard about Slater’s murder, did you think it was Lynn?”
“No. No, it never entered my mind.” The doctor’s voice had gone up a full octave. '
He saw Nat looking dubious.
“I never thought Lynn’d be in Slater’s bedroom before—” He hesitated.
“Before her surgery?” she suggested.
He nodded, then slowly shook his head. “It was a foolish thing for her to do. If only she’d waited.”
“You knew she was having the operation.”
“Yes. I fully supported her decision. I was one of her references. It isn’t easy to qualify as a candidate for sex-reassignment surgery. I mean, by a reputable surgeon. For a price, it’s always possible to find unscrupulous doctors who will operate, no questions asked. But Lynn was smart enough to know that would have been risky physically as well as psychologically.”
“Who was the other reference?” Leo asked.
“Claire Fisher, my head nurse.”
Nat saw Leo jot down the nurse’s name.
“Did Lynn tell you she was a transsexual before or after she started working at the clinic?”
“When I first interviewed Lynn for the position, she was completely frank with me,” Bell said. “I admired her for that. It took guts. She could have easily passed, and I’d never have been any the wiser, I assure you.”
“What was your reaction?”
“Surprise,” he answered Nat without hesitation. “But I wasn’t put off, if that’s what you’re thinking. And, as you know, I hired her.”
“You say Lynn was completely frank with you. Did she tell you about her past? Her family? Other people she was close to?” Leo asked.
“She told me she was estranged from her parents.” .
“Did she ever mention trying to play it straight? Say, back in high school or college? Dating women—”
“Lynn is not a lesbian. She sees herself as heterosexual. A heterosexual woman. I have always seen her that way as well. Prior to her sex-change operation as well as after her surgery. I wish she’d been up front with Matthew Slater. Then she’d have seen from the get-go that he wasn’t the man she thought he was.”
“Most men aren’t,” Nat said. Leo gave her a sideways look. She ignored it. She was thinking about why Bell wished Lynn had been honest with Slater. Was it because he was jealous of the lawyer? Did he want Lynn for himself?
“Has Lynn mentioned anyone—man or woman—in the past five weeks that she’s had any involvement with?” Leo asked.
“No. No one. As far as I know.”
Bell’s intercom buzzer went off. He wasted no time responding to it. “Yes, Mona?”
“Your three-o’clock is here, Dr. Bell.”
“Thanks, Mona.” Bell rose. “I’m afraid I really can’t spare any more time right now.”
“Just one more question, Doctor,” Nat said as Bell was already heading toward the door.
“Yes?”
“What’s your opinion about two colleagues getting romantically involved?”
Bell cast Nat a dark look. “I don’t approve of that, either,” he said tightly, yanking open the door. Nat was sure he’d have liked nothing better than to boot her out bodily, but he managed to control himself.
thirteen
Sex-reassignment surgery doesn’t bring nirvana. The therapist’s job is to help his transsexual patients under
.
stand that their pasts cannot be rewritten.
Dr. Robert Schwartz (excerpt from
Journal of Sexology)
"WHAT DO YOU think?” Nat asked Leo as they settled down with their mugs of coffee at a small table in the hospital coffee shop. Claire Fisher had agreed to meet them down here when she finished work at five. It was now a quarter to five.
“I think they were close. How close? I’m not sure yet.”
“I wonder how close Carol thinks they were. That business about not telling his wife every time he visited Lynn, says to me he thought Carol might not be too pleased.”
Leo’s cell phone rang. He checked the number on the screen before he clicked on.
“Yeah, Mitch. What’s up?” He listened for a minute. “Yeah, okay. I’m on my way.”
“What?”
“The funeral director confirmed Rodney Bartlett’s alibi. But Oates got the list of attendees who were at the funeral and started contacting them. One of them was sitting right behind Bartlett at the funeral, and she seems to recollect him leaving before the service ended. But she wasn’t willing to swear to it. And can’t pin down a time. Oates and I are going to divvy up the list and see if we can come up with anyone else who saw Bartlett make an early
%
exit. Because the thing is—” He paused for effect. “Oates clocked the time from the funeral home to the crime scene. Drove it at noon. Took him just under fourteen minutes.”
“So if Rodney did .slip out of the funeral service, he could have easily—”
“He could even have made it back before the service was over.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a search warrant for his home and office and discover the knife,” Nat said wistfully.
“Something tells me that knife is probably on the bottom of the bay. Whoever did the cutting was too smart to hold on to the weapon.”
“Rodney could easily have tossed it in the harbor on his way back from the clinic,” Nat pointed out.
“Bell could have tossed it, too.” Leo hesitated. “You want to put our talk with Claire Fisher on hold or—?”
Nat smiled. “It’ll be okay, Leo. Actually, Claire might be more open without a police detective around.”
He took a quick gulp of his coffee, eyeing her over the rim. “Okay, so I’ll see you later.”
“Right. The reheated Chinese.”
Leo looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, that, too. But I meant over at the center.”
“Oh . . . right. Suzanne?”
“Yeah,” Leo said, not quite meeting Nat’s eyes.
Claire Fisher took Leo’s vacated chair, setting a steaming-hot cup of tea and a corn muffin on the table. Bell’s head nurse was a trim brunette in her early thirties. Her hair was cut stylishly short. ^She was quite pretty, but not the least bit flashy. She was wearing a crisp white lab coat over taupe slacks. She looked efficient. And friendly.
“How’s Lynn doing?” she asked right off the bat.
“Not great.”
Claire Fisher shook her head. “It’s so awful. I still can’t really take it in.”
“Were you here yesterday?”
“No. I was home sick. A migraine. I don’t get them very often, but when I do, it’s pure agony.” She focused her attention on her cup of tea, removing the tea bag and setting it on the edge of her paper plate, pushing aside her muffin as some of the liquid oozed out.
“How long have you worked for Harrison Bell?”
“Nine years. Almost ten. I started here right out of nursing school.”
“He must be a great boss.”
A faint flush crept up her neck. “He does very important work. Chronic pain is a terrible thing. So many doctors just throw pills at you and basically tell you there’s nothing to be done for it. You just have to live with it. But they don’t give you any help in learning how to live with it. Here, we work on a mind-body approach. Everything from physical therapy to hypnosis to imaging and psychological counseling. We don’t help everyone, but we help a lot of people.”
“Matthew Slater? Did you help him?”
Claire looked rattled. “Oh,” she muttered.
“Lynn confided in you, didn’t she?” Nat made the question sound like she already knew the answer.
“She did tell me she was seeing Matthew, but that’s only because she believed I suspected something was going on between them. ” She took a careful sip of her tea.
“Was she right?”
“I did think he made more appointments with her than were necessary. For his physical condition.”
“Claire, do you have any idea who attacked Lynn yesterday?” Nat asked bluntly.
“No. No, I can’t imagine anyone being that vicious. I guess you see people like that all the time, given your work, but I don’t know a soul who would do something so monstrous. And to Lynn, of all people. She’s such a good person.” A flush made its way up to her cheeks. “Oh, I know that must sound strange for me to say. Considering what happened to Matthew Slater. But I never, ever doubted that it was self-defense.”
“How come?”
“Because I know Lynn. And . . . And I knew Slater.”
Nat arched a brow.
Claire looked uncomfortable. “He hit on me a couple of times during our physical therapy sessions.”
“Did you tell Lynn?”